Given how polarized the United States has become on just about every issue, it’s understandable that many people are often tricked into thinking that their positions must be absolute… all, or nothing.
You are either fully with something, or you’re against it. No in between.
The transgender movement seems to work a lot like that. Any dissent, any disagreement with any part of it can lead to instant accusations of transphobia, hate and bigotry.
Devoted California track mom Jennifer Oliver, while speaking to OutKick about the issue of biological males in women’s sports, bravely turned that notion on its head.
Oliver may not like it that trans athlete AB Hernandez, a biological male from Jurupa Valley, prevented her daughter, Nieve Oliver, a sophomore from Camarillo, from earning the top spot on the podium in the high jump at the girls’ high school state qualifying track meet on Saturday at Moorpark High School, northwest of Los Angeles.
But Oliver says that doesn’t mean that she also dislikes Hernandez, or the way Hernandez has chosen to do life. It also doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have compassion and empathy for Hernandez.
“There’s no hate,” Oliver said. “None of that. My daughter is super inclusive. We get along with everybody. This has nothing to do with any of that. But we also need to do the right thing. My daughter is hoping the adults in charge will do the right thing.”
CALIFORNIA GIRLS’ TRACK ATHLETE OPENS UP ON LOSING FIRST-PLACE TITLE TO TRANS COMPETITOR
So what is the right thing?
For advocates of protecting girls’ and women’s sports, like Oliver, it’s easy. Fairness. Safety. Respect.
Oliver believes that girls are deprived of all of that the second a biological male is allowed in their spaces, and in their sports.
Hernandez, who won two California state championships last year in girls track (high jump and triple jump), is now in position to earn three more titles. At Saturday’s state qualifying meet, Hernandez won not only high jump and triple jump but long jump as well. Hernandez will compete in those events in the state meet next weekend at Buchanan High School in Clovis.
Meanwhile, Nieve Oliver will also compete at state in the high jump. But she and four other girls who jumped 5-foot-6 in Moorpark were deprived of being able to say they had the best qualifying jump of the day, because Hernandez jumped 5-foot-8.
“The adults need to make the right decision here. Period. Hands down. And so far, that’s not happening,” Oliver said. “Thank goodness high jump is not a contact sport. My daughter plays girls flag football, too. I’m very concerned that if there was an issue like this in flag football, I don’t think I’d let her compete. It wouldn’t be safe.”
Likewise, Oliver doesn’t believe that a biological male competing against women in any sport is fair. She thinks that the state of California’s willful disregard of President Donald Trump’s executive order from February of 2025 that prohibits men in women’s sports will be eventually addressed by the courts.
“It’s like, what can we (parents) really do right now,” Oliver asked in frustration. “We can wait for the season to be over and we can hope that we’ll see this play out in the courts and we can only hope that the courts get it right. That’s really what needs to happen.”
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To hedge its bets, the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) created a rule in which, during the later rounds of the state track meets, a trans athlete who wins an event must share the top spot on the podium with the highest-placing female, which reads as almost a soft acknowledgment that this situation is problematic at its core.
“I think the bottom line is that everyone knows who won, we all know,” Oliver said of the shared podium farce. “And you kind of feel bad for AB in that way. I mean, this is not about the person (AB). Not at all. It’s not about a certain community. It’s not about any of that. It’s just that…it should have never gotten to this point in the first place.
“Biology is biology. We’re just hoping that they get this right next year. It’s time to do the right thing.”
Of course, the right thing is that every young athlete deserves a place to compete and thrive. But that place needs to be the right place, both fair and safe — not just for the one athlete, but also for everyone else.
